Biographical Data :

Name :

Jarallah Omar Al Kuhali

Period :

1942 - 2002

Biographical detail :

Yemeni socialist leader who spent his life in pursuit of his country’s unity.

Jarallah a former guerrilla leader was one of Yemen’s leading advocates for liberal democracy. He joined the pan-Arab nationalist movement in 1960 and confronted many oppositions. The overthrow of the monarchy in northern Yemen in 1962, and the ensuing, eight-year civil war, further radicalised him. He was imprisoned from 1968 to 1971 and after his release he joined the armed struggle.

Jarallah continued the leftist insurgency, as a leader of the National Democratic Front, for several years. He blamed the party’s 1986 bloodbath on a lack of opportunity for people to air grievances without fear of reprisals.

Jarallah, in 1988, argued for political pluralism and north-south unification – two years later that unification came about though in a more hasty and ill-prepared way that he envisaged. In 1994, the strains and the disputes led to a civil war.

Jarallah Omar al-Kuhali, born in Kuhal in the northern province of Ibb, and who was a man of ideas was assassinated for the principles that he stood for and his funeral was one of the largest Yemen has ever witnessed.